


dancing lessons

by BlackJacketsandPens



Series: emily kaldwin and the ghost of the tower [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, happy new year have a 10yo teaching a void entity how to dance, more friendship fluff, these two are nerds more at 11, with bonus Worrying Over Corvo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:16:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9142534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: Emily is visited again by her tower's ghost -- or whatever he is -- and this time, it's her turn to teach someone something.





	

A few days of studying with Callista, Emily thought, was exceedingly boring. Not any more or less boring than her tutor at the Tower, she thought sourly, but still boring. History, sums, geography, the Strictures... _ugh_. She never understood why it was all so important to begin with -- she'd much rather be reading about adventures, or monsters, or learning to sail or to swordfight -- but here and now, cooped up in her little tower watching through the window as Corvo and the other loyalists plotted their next move.

She wasn't even allowed to go down to the dog fighting cage to talk to Mr. Sokolov! She had sneaked down once to say hello anyways, and he had been happy to see she was alright, but the grumpy Admiral had caught her and carried her back to her room before he could tell her any of his exciting stories about the Academy or Pandyssia.

Corvo did try to visit when he could, which was nice -- her favorite part of the day, really -- but she could easily tell something was wrong. He looked pale and tired all the time, like he wasn't sleeping, and his hair was all long and messy; she knew he always used to keep it neat and short and out of his face, so that worried her. He didn't even really respond when she had told him she liked it and tried to comb it with her fingers. He hadn't shaved yet, either, and he winced sometimes when he stood or sat or she hugged him too hard. Not only that, but he wasn't _eating_. Okay, so she’d seen him have an apple or a bit of dark bread, but that was all -- Miss Lydia had made hotpot one night, really good hotpot with blood ox, and she’d even managed to get hold of some Serkonan garlic -- and Corvo hadn't even touched his bowl.

So as happy as she was that her beloved Protector was safe and here with her, she worried. She’d read about people wasting away to nothing out of sadness or missing someone, and she prayed it didn't happen to Corvo. Worse than if someone killed him would be if he did it to himself. 

She was awake, watching Callista sleep on the bed beside hers, and contemplating crossing the bridge to Corvo’s makeshift room. She wondered if he was asleep. Probably not, she decided, and she was a little unwilling to barge in while he was thinking whatever thoughts. So she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, squinting in the dim light from the window as she tried to read a copy of a penny dreadful she’d ‘borrowed’ from Miss Cecelia. It was interesting, with a ghost ship and pirates and a dashing hero sallying forth to rescue his lady love.

She barely even noticed -- with good reason, for he didn’t make a single sound -- when someone perched themselves on the bed behind her until a pale finger tapped the pages. “Cursed ancient gold?” A voice asked. “Really?”

She squeaked loudly, nearly whipping around to smack her ghost in the face with the book. He ducked, chuckling, and shook his head at her. “Then again, it doesn’t look like high literature, so…”

“Shush,” she told him with a huff. “It’s good. See, he doesn’t know it yet, but the hero’s father was a pirate with the crew that got turned into ghosts, but he ran away before it happened and gave his son the last of the cursed coins they needed to break the curse, so that way they’d be cursed forever. And the pirate helping him knows, but he won’t tell.” She laughed. “The pirate is funny.”

Her ghost smiled. “It sounds interesting,” he said, and Emily could tell he meant it. He shifted in his position to sit cross-legged and pull Emily into his lap, leaning his chin on the top of her head. He was skinny, she noted, and very cold, but not in an uncomfortable way. “But I have a feeling it’s not part of your schoolwork, is it, Emily?”

Emily turned pink. “N-No,” she admitted. “I borrowed it from Miss Cecelia. She has lots that she keeps under the bar for when there aren’t customers. I’m going to put it back when I’m done, that’s what I did with the one about the philosopher who built a machine to go underground and saw a whole different world with different animals, and the one that was supposed to be scary about philosophers and an Overseer going into the Outer Sphere.”

“Supposed to be?” Her ghost asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Emily shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “Not after I’ve seen real life scary things. It was good, though.” She paused, and then went a little red, squirming around in her spot to try to see Callista’s bed.

“Don’t worry,” her ghost reassured her, noticing her alarm. “Callista won’t hear us. She’ll sleep soundly until morning. Promise.” 

Emily grinned wide. “Well, okay!” She said brightly. “Thank you, mister ghost.” 

She leaned back to stare up at his thin, young face. This was the third time he’d visited her, total -- there was that first time, a few days after she’d gotten to the Tower, the night Corvo had gone to get Sokolov. Then a second time two nights later, where they’d talked a little about Sokolov and the Academy, and he’d told her more of his story about King Artorius, the one who’d pulled the sword from the stone. She liked him, the strange ghost that lived in the tower. She wondered, sometimes, how he chose the nights he’d come visit -- was there anything special, or were they just the nights he was loneliest? Either way, it kind of comforted her a little. Her ghost, her _friend_.

“Are you going to tell me more of the story?” She asked. “You were at the part where, um…” She screwed her face up in thought. “You told me how King Artorius and Myrddin went and got his magic sword from the water lady, and the legend of Myrddin and King Vortigern and the dragons, and King Artorius marrying Queen Gwenhyfar…”

Her ghost laughed. “You have a good memory,” he noted. “Now, I _could_ tell you about the Knights of Kamelot and their adventures. There’s a great many of them, and I have a feeling you’d like the one about Sir Gauvain and the Rag Woman.” He smiled faintly at Emily’s excited expression. “But I want you to tell _me_ a story tonight.”

Emily blinked. “Me tell you a story?” She asked, bewildered. “But I don’t know any. I-I mean, besides the ones I read in books, but I bet you know those already.”

“Emily, I’m a... _ghost_ ,” her ghost pointed out, faltering a moment on the word ‘ghost’ as if he meant something different. “Do you think I have access to books? But that’s irrelevant, really. Make something up. Tell me about Corvo.”

Emily perked up. “Oh!” She said excitedly. “He’s going to a party.” Off her ghost’s bemused expression, she explained. “Mr. Sokolov said that the person who’s giving mean old Burrows money is one of the Ladies Boyle. And it’s just about time for their annual masquerade, so no one will notice Corvo if he walks in to make her go away. So he gets to go to the party. It’s in two days, so everyone’s getting ready.”

“The annual masquerade?” Her ghost asked with a grin. “It sounds like it’s quite the party.”

Emily nodded emphatically. “Everyone goes. Well, except Mother -- she wasn’t supposed to because of tradition or something. She gets sent an invitation, but she has to say no. When I was old enough I would have gone, though.” She shrugged. “But it’s still really amazing. There’s preparations for _weeks_. The great hall in the Tower is filled with people from Drapers’ Ward, and the other Isles -- tailors and mask makers and all sort of people, setting out cloth and designs and masks for people to pick out. And the masks!” She beams. “They’re _amazing_.”

She spread her arms wide. “They’re all animals, of all different kinds. I’ve seen birds, and lions, and bears, and bugs like butterflies and moths, and even fish! And the costumes, too, they all match. This one lady, one year, dressed up as a mermaid like in stories, and her clothes were layers and layers of Serkonan silk with shiny pearls and actual fish scales sewn into it, and sequins that made it glitter all blue and green.” She kicked her legs thoughtfully. “And another time, I saw a costume someone was wearing that was an owl, with white Tyvian velvet and a huge copper beak on their mask.”

“Well,” her ghost said. “Impressive. I wouldn’t think the Overseers would let them have a party like that.”

Emily giggled. “Well, it’s kind of a way to get around it, a party before Fugue Feast later in the year,” she explained. “But you hear lots of rumors about it. I heard some of the servants in the tower gossiping that they do like...spooky magic rituals in the basement of the party.” She laughed again. “With whalebones and stuff, black magic like the Overseers ban.”

She wasn’t sure why her ghost looked genuinely amused at that, or why he laughed so loudly, but he ruffled her hair. “Outsider worship?” He asked, his voice mild.

“I guess,” she said with a shrug. “That’s what that stuff is, isn’t it?” She leaned back against her ghost’s chest. “It’s what the Strictures say, but the Strictures say _everything_ bad is the Outsider’s doing, so I don’t know.” She paused. “I just kind of think it’s funny that they say if I lie about if I read my assignment, or if I want something pretty I see in a store window, or if I want to go exploring places instead of doing my job, it’s all the Outsider’s fault. I mean, it’s _me_ who wants to do that stuff, so...”

Her ghost laughed again. “Children are always wiser than adults when it comes to that sort of thing,” he said quietly. “Try to keep that wisdom when you grow up, Emily, all right?”

“Okay,” Emily said solemnly, because it felt like something she should be solemn about. “I’ll do my best.”

The two of them fell silent for a moment, before Emily perked up again, a thought occurring to her. “Do you know how to dance, mister ghost?”

Her ghost blinked, startled, and then shook his head. “I’ve watched people dance for a very long time, all kinds different dances,” he said. “Many no one remembers. But I can’t recall if I ever danced, myself.”

Emily lit up, sliding off her ghost’s lap to the floor and turning around. “Then I’ll show you!” She said proudly. “Mother and I learned some Gristolian dances, and Corvo taught me a Serkonan one once. He said that you don’t really need _steps_ to dance, just a rhythm to dance to.”

Her ghost stood slowly, looking amused and a little bewildered again, that same look he seemed to give her a lot; the one that seemed to say he didn’t know what to do with her. “Alright,” he agreed. “Do you have music?”

“I do!” She said happily, and scurried off to one of the tables in the tower. She didn’t seem to notice the odd chill in the air, or that the room smelled again like ocean air, or the way the walls seemed to be just a little off in their angles -- she was excited to teach someone something, instead of being taught. “Callista has a lot of music. She likes it. Let me find something nice...”

She flipped through the audiograph cards stacked neatly in a pile on the table, frowning at the songs they contained, before she found what she was looking for. “Here we go,” she said brightly, moving over to the audiograph machine and putting it in. “I like this one. It’s a traditional Morleyan song, I think.”

She clicked the button, and a song started filtering out of the machine -- it wasn’t a sad song, but it wasn’t a fast jig, either, slow and gentle with a woman singing. She turned and walked back to her ghost, who stood there awkwardly, and curtseyed politely. “The man is supposed to ask the lady to dance, mister ghost,” she said teasingly, and he laughed, bowing and holding out his hand.

“May I have this dance, Lady Emily?” He asked, and she laughed and took his hand. She reached for his other one, putting it on her shoulder, and she reached up -- not that far, thankfully, because he wasn’t that much taller than her -- to put her hand on his waist. She knew it was probably supposed to be the other way around, but she felt like it would be weird. Their other hands stayed where they were, and she hummed along with the song as she led him around the room, trying not to step on his feet.

She could tell he seemed a bit embarrassed and confused about this, and was trying not to step on her bare feet with his boots, but after a little bit, both of them relaxed. The next song Emily put on _was_ a jig, though, and though her ghost was taken aback, the two of them got into it, bouncing around the room -- and when the song ran out, the two tumbled sideways onto her bed, laughing.

“Well,” her ghost said breathlessly after a moment. “That was an experience.”

Emily laughed happily. “It was!” She said, grinning and crawling on top of her ghost to rest her chin on his chest. “I’m glad you had fun, mister ghost. Everyone should get to have fun once in a while.” Especially if they were lonely ghosts, she thought to herself. Those needed to have fun a lot more than most. Lonely ghosts and lonely princesses.

She yawned loudly, shamelessly using her friend as a pillow. “Next time y’gotta tell me the story you mentioned,” she mumbled to him. “Th’ one ab’t the Rag Lady.”

“I will,” her ghost reassured her. “Now go to sleep. I’m sure you’ll be very busy tomorrow.”

Emily huffed sleepily, but obliged, closing her eyes and drifting off. As she did so, she swore she heard someone humming -- not the songs she’d played earlier, but something that sounded...old. Very old, and sad. Like the audiograph of whales singing she’d heard once.

But sleep took her, and she didn’t have time to think much about it. 

The next morning, as always, her ghost was gone, and Callista didn’t even seem to have noticed anything during the night. Not only that, Emily realized, all Callista’s music was where it should be, like she’d never even touched it. That, and the penny dreadful she’d been reading was tucked under her pillow. She silently thanked her ghost, grinning, and got dressed, following the other woman down to the bar for breakfast and to start her lessons.

Maybe tonight, she decided, she’d see if Corvo wanted to dance with her before the party. 

**Author's Note:**

> OOPS I guess I had more in me. Bonus if you guess what exactly her book is about ;)
> 
> For fun, the first song they dance to is probably Greensleeves -- the second one is...heck, just pick a catchy English/Irish jig. Maybe even Drunken Sailor!
> 
> These two are entirely too cute to be allowed, I hate it. I'll probably have one or two more in me, maybe?


End file.
